Iowa’s Journeyperson HVAC/Refrigeration license is issued by the Plumbing and Mechanical Systems Board within the Department of Inspections, Appeals, and Licensing, under Iowa Code chapter 105. Its own examination, through Kirkwood Community College, is an open-book sitting of 75 questions in two hours, with refrigeration carrying the largest share of the outline. The PassProfessor Iowa Journeyperson HVAC/Refrigeration program prepares candidates for that sitting and the Iowa licensing structure around it.
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What this credential certifies
A journeyperson, in Iowa’s definition, is a person other than a master who, as a principal occupation, is engaged as an employee of, or otherwise working under the direction of, a master in the design, installation, and repair of the systems in the discipline. The Journeyperson HVAC/Refrigeration license allows the individual to perform work defined as HVAC and refrigeration. The holder works under the supervision of a master licensed in the discipline of the work being performed, may supervise apprentices only in the journeyperson’s own discipline and only while working for the same licensed contractor, and must not knowingly perform chapter 105 work for an unlicensed contractor.
The limits are part of the credential. A journeyperson is not a master and cannot hold the business role: no one may engage in the business of designing, installing, or repairing these systems unless a licensed master is employed and actively in charge at all times, and a person who performs the work through a sole proprietorship must personally be a licensed master in the discipline. A journeyperson therefore cannot serve as a master of record and cannot hold the separate Contractor license role. Practising as a journeyperson without the supervision of a master is itself a disciplinary ground. The broader Journeyperson Mechanical license — covering sheet metal and hydronic work as well — is a separate license, as is the Master HVAC/Refrigeration license above this tier.
The examination at a glance
| Item | Verified position |
|---|---|
| Program | Iowa Journeyperson HVAC/Refrigeration: the journeyperson examination in the HVAC-refrigeration discipline, titled by the examination provider as Journeyperson HVAC/Refrigeration with Gas |
| Regulator | Plumbing and Mechanical Systems Board (PMSB), within the Department of Inspections, Appeals, and Licensing (DIAL), under Iowa Code chapter 105 and 481 IAC chapters 425–435 |
| Examination provider | Kirkwood Community College, the Board’s approved examination provider |
| Examination format | Written and proctored, in person or online; 75 questions; two hours; open book with approved references only |
| Passing standard | A score of 75 percent or better is considered passing — the Board’s general examination rule, at 481 IAC 429.6(2)(d) |
| Tested references | Modern Refrigeration and Air Conditioning, 21st edition; International Mechanical Code, 2024 edition; NFPA 54 National Fuel Gas Code, 2024 edition |
| Field code | State Mechanical Code: International Mechanical Code, 2024 edition, effective March 26, 2025 |
| Fees, as separate instruments | Board examination-candidate fee $35 per trade examination; Kirkwood examination fee $119 per attempt; Board journeyperson license fee $180 for the three-year period |
| Credential term | Three-year cycle, expiring June 30 in the renewal year |
| Administrator note | PassProfessor is independent and is not affiliated with the Plumbing and Mechanical Systems Board, DIAL, or Kirkwood Community College |
Refrigeration first: how this outline is weighted
Kirkwood publishes the content outline as percentages of the 75 questions, and the weighting tells the candidate where the sitting lives. Refrigeration, Terms, System Operations carries 24 percent — nearly one question in four, the largest single block. Venting, Combustion, Gas Piping follows at 23 percent. HVAC Principles, Terms, Administration, and Safety carries 21 percent. Boilers, Ducts, Electricals carries 17 percent. HVAC Installation Requirements carries 15 percent. The five areas sum to 100 percent.
That distribution is the reason this program is built refrigeration-led. A candidate whose working life is mostly furnaces and split systems still faces a sitting in which refrigeration outweighs installation, and in which venting, combustion, and gas piping together nearly match the refrigeration block. The gas piping content is examined from NFPA 54, not from the mechanical code, so the candidate works in two code books and one refrigeration text at once. The administration and safety content inside the first area is where Iowa law and Board rule enter the sitting. No scored and pretest split is published for this examination, and none is stated here.
Scope: what HVAC and refrigeration mean in Iowa
Iowa defines its terms in Iowa Code section 105.2, and the examination tests work inside those definitions. HVAC means heating, ventilation, air conditioning, ducted systems, or any type of refrigeration used for food processing or preservation, and includes all gas lines associated with any component of an HVAC system. Refrigeration means any system of refrigeration, regardless of the level of power, if intended for food processing and product preservation, including associated gas lines. The “with Gas” element in the examination’s title reflects those definitions: associated gas lines sit inside the discipline itself.
The boundaries matter as much as the centre. A licensee in this discipline is exempt from a special electrician’s license under chapter 103 only to disconnect and reconnect existing air conditioning and refrigeration systems; that narrow exemption is not a general electrical scope. Fuel gas piping also sits inside Iowa’s plumbing definition, so the overlap is recorded carefully rather than treated as an exclusive assignment to one trade. Chapter 105 preempts local licensing, although localities may still assess permit and inspection fees. Two specialty sublicenses — Service Technician HVAC and Hearth Systems — sit under an HVAC-refrigeration or mechanical license, and a journeyperson holding the parent license is not required to obtain a sublicense of it.
The Iowa delta: tested and adopted on the same 2024 edition
Iowa’s defining fact is a code move that skipped an edition entirely. The State Mechanical Code, at 481 IAC chapter 426, adopts Sections 101–102 and Chapters 2–15 of the International Mechanical Code, 2024 edition, effective March 26, 2025 — a direct move from the 2018 edition. Iowa never adopted the intervening 2021 edition, and secondary material that assumes Iowa stepped through it is wrong for both the field and this sitting. Examination and field standard sit on the same 2024 edition: tested equals adopted, as two layers that happen to agree.
The fuel gas layer completes the delta. Iowa does not adopt the International Fuel Gas Code, in any edition. Iowa amendments replace references to that code with NFPA 54, NFPA 58, chapter 226 of Title 661, and the state plumbing code, and the examination’s fuel gas reference is the 2024 edition of NFPA 54. A candidate who studies fuel gas from the international code family is studying a book Iowa does not use. One caution travels with the alignment: a local jurisdiction is not required to adopt the state codes by ordinance, and adopting jurisdictions may be more restrictive, so no candidate should assume every Iowa city enforces an identical local package.
The route, in order
Board approval comes before the sitting. The candidate submits a State of Iowa Examination Candidate Application, online or on paper, with the Board’s candidate fee, at least 15 business days before the examination. Board staff verify the information and, where eligibility is met, send an Exam Approval Letter carrying the Kirkwood scheduling instructions. Approval is valid for one year; the candidate may test as many times as necessary during that period, paying the Kirkwood fee for each attempt, and no maximum-attempts cap is published.
The gate to sit and the gate to be licensed are related but distinct. An examination candidate must have completed a minimum of 36 months in a registered apprenticeship program, or hold at least four years of pre-2010 experience supported by a notarized Affidavit of Employment. Licensure itself requires four years of practical experience as an apprentice in a registered program, and the application is not processed until the Office of Apprenticeship certificate of completion has been issued and the applicant has graduated. Helper experience does not count, and the floor for any license is at least 18 years of age.
Passing is not the end of the route: a license is not automatically issued, a separate post-examination application is required, and a passing score expires if licensure is not applied for within two years of notification.
Three fees, three instruments
Iowa’s charges arrive in three separate instruments, paid to two different recipients at three different points, never to be merged into a single figure: the Board’s candidate fee of $35 per trade examination, buying Board approval only; the examination fee of $119 per attempt, paid directly to Kirkwood at registration and non-refundable; and the Board’s license fee of $180 for the three-year period, initial and renewal identical, with proration for a partial initial period. Hold the three apart the way the system does: approval, attempt, license.
Examination day: the open-book discipline
Open book in Iowa means open book with approved references only — for this sitting, the three listed references. Code references may be bound or loose-leaf; photocopies may not be used. No handwritten or additional notes may be in the reference books, and material written in during the examination is confiscated. Highlighting done before arrival and permanent tabbing are acceptable; removable sticky notes are not. References are checked before and after the examination and may not be shared, and scratch paper is provided and confiscated. A battery-operated, nonprogrammable calculator without storage or printing capability is allowed, as are an architect’s scale or rule and a translation dictionary if needed. No cell phones or similar devices are allowed in the testing area.
Candidates register by calling Kirkwood, select a test site, and contact it directly to schedule; the sitting is offered periodically at rotating Iowa sites, in person or online. Candidates arrive at least 30 minutes early with photo identification bearing a signature, in a name that exactly matches the registration name. The score shows on screen at the end; results are confidential; failed sections will be identified on request; and there is no hands-on practical or drawing component. One provider detail deserves careful reading: the listed editions are the editions the questions are based on, but a book physically brought may be from any edition — an allowance about the desk, not about what the questions key to.
Staying licensed: renewal and continuing education
All Iowa licenses in this system run on a fixed three-year cycle and expire June 30 every three years, regardless of issue date; the current period runs July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2029. Renewal opens May 1 of the third year, due at least 30 days before expiration. A one-month grace period through July 31 runs without a late fee. Renewal in August carries a $60 late fee, and renewal after August through the following June 30 a $100 late fee, in each case plus the renewal fee and without examination. A license remains valid for practice for up to two months past expiration and then lapses; reinstatement after a lapse of more than one year requires retaking and passing the applicable examination, or completing all continuing education for each missed period, at the full fee with no proration. Inactive status must itself be renewed, is not valid for practice until reactivated, and remains subject to continuing education.
For a single Journeyperson HVAC/Refrigeration license, continuing education is eight hours per three-year period: two hours of safety, on Iowa Occupational Safety and Health Act content; two hours of code, on the Iowa mechanical code; and four hours in the discipline. An hour is at least 50 minutes in one sitting, courses and instructors must be Board-approved, a course attended more than once in a period cannot be counted more than once, and at least half the hours must be in person. Holders of several licenses face higher combined totals under the Board’s table, and a holder of HVAC-refrigeration and hydronic licenses at the same level may elect to combine them toward a single Mechanical license at renewal, a route the companion guide examines in full. On reciprocity, hold one precise position: the only agreement the Board publishes, with the South Dakota State Plumbing Commission from May 2016, covers plumbing licenses only. No published agreement covers an HVAC-refrigeration license, and federal refrigerant-handling certification is not a Board licensure prerequisite; it belongs to federal law.
What the PassProfessor program will cover
Refrigeration-led, outline-weighted. The Iowa Journeyperson HVAC/Refrigeration program in the PassProfessor catalog follows the published percentages, with refrigeration at the head of the distribution and venting, combustion, and gas piping close behind. Practice material is composed against the examination’s three listed references: Modern Refrigeration and Air Conditioning, 21st edition, for the refrigeration core; the 2024 International Mechanical Code for the mechanical provisions; and the 2024 edition of NFPA 54 for the gas piping content. No part is composed from the prior mechanical code edition, or from a fuel gas code Iowa does not adopt.
The Iowa layer carried throughout. Chapter 105 scope definitions, the supervision discipline, the candidate-approval route with its one-year window, the three separate fee instruments, and the triennial renewal structure are carried through the material rather than appended to it. Every item is written from scratch against primary sources.
Independence, stated plainly. PassProfessor is an independent preparation provider, not affiliated with the Plumbing and Mechanical Systems Board, the Department of Inspections, Appeals, and Licensing, or Kirkwood Community College. Completing this program confers no license and no approval; the Board approves candidates, Kirkwood administers the sitting, and the Board alone licenses.
Tell me when enrollment opens. This program is in the works and enrollment is not yet open. Leave an email address and PassProfessor will write to you when the program is ready — and only about this program. The companion Exam Guide at /iowa-journeyperson-hvac-refrigeration-exam-guide/ works through the credential, the outline area by area, and the route in full depth.
Frequently asked questions
What score passes?
The Board’s general examination rule states the standard in these words: “A score of 75 percent or better is considered passing.” The rule sits at 481 IAC 429.6(2)(d) and governs each Board examination.
What references may a candidate use during the examination?
Three: Modern Refrigeration and Air Conditioning, 21st edition; the International Mechanical Code, 2024 edition; and NFPA 54, 2024 edition. The questions key to those editions, although a book physically brought to the sitting may be from another edition.
What code edition is the examination keyed to?
The 2024 International Mechanical Code. Iowa adopted that edition effective March 26, 2025, in a direct move from the 2018 edition; Iowa never adopted the intervening 2021 edition.
What does the route cost, in official fees?
Three separate instruments: a $35 Board candidate fee per trade examination, a $119 examination fee per attempt paid to Kirkwood, and a $180 Board license fee for the three-year period — paid at different points to different recipients, never a single charge.
How much continuing education does renewal require?
For a single license of this kind, eight hours per three-year period: two hours of safety, two hours of code, and four hours in the discipline, from Board-approved courses and instructors.
When does enrollment open?
The program is in the works and enrollment is not yet open. Leave an email address and PassProfessor will write when the program is ready — only about this program.